King Alfred's Viking eBook

After that was joyous feasting, and the loosing of
the chrism bands at Alfred’s royal town of Wedmore,
whither we went in bright procession through the long
summer day. Four days we bided there, till we
knew that the great Danish host was on its march homewards,
and then Guthrum and his comrades must join it.
But before he went he accepted from Alfred the gifts
that an under-king should take from his overlord,
and they were most splendid. All men knew by
those tokens given and taken that Alfred was king indeed,
and that Guthrum did but hold place by his sufferance.
Those two parted in wondrous friendship with the new
bond of the faith woven round them, and the host passed
from Wessex and was gone.

Yet, as ever, many a long year must pass by before
the track of the Danes should be blotted out from
the fair land they had laid waste. Everywhere
was work to hand on burnt hall and homestead, ruined
church, and wasted monastery. There was nought
that men grieved over more than the burning of King
Ine’s church at Glastonbury, for that had been
the pride of all the land. Once, after the Chippenham
flight, the monks had dared to go out in sad procession
to meet the fierce raiders at the long dike that bars
the way to Avalon, and for that time they had won
safety for the place—­maybe by the loss
of their treasures given as ransom, or, as some say,
by the power of fearless and unarmed men; for there
were men in the Danish host whose minds were noble,
and might well be touched thereby. But Hubba’s
men could not be withheld after they had lost their
mighty leader, and the place must feel their fury
of revenge.

Now after the host was gone we went back to Taunton,
and there Alfred called together his Witan, that he
might set all things in order with their help; and
at that time, before the levies were dismissed, he
bade me seek out such men as would take to the ships
as his paid seamen. Therein I had no hard task,
for from the ruined coast towns came seafarers, homeless
and lonely, asking nought better than to find a place
in the king’s fleet, and first of all were the
Parret-mouth men and my fisher of Wareham. Presently,
with one consent, the Witan made me leader of the
king’s Wessex sea levies, offering me the rank
and fee of an English ealdorman, with power to demand
help in the king’s name from all sea-coast sheriffs
and port reeves in whatever was needed for the ships,
being answerable to the throne only for what I should
do. And that I accepted willingly for love of
Alfred, who was my friend, and for the sake of comradeship
with those valiant men who had fought beside me when
Hubba fell, and at Edington.

Then must I set myself to my new charge, having nought
to do with all the inland work that was before the
king; and when the next day’s business was over,
I went to tell him of this wish of mine, and of some
other matters that were on my mind whereof one may
easily guess.